BONOLENOV IS FAKE HISOKA!! HUNTER X HUNTER CHAPTER 405 SPOILERS!!

In the previous Hunter x Hunter chapter, Halkenburg is officially proclaimed deceased and we get a brief sneak peek of Leorio. More importantly, the Phantom Troupe are about to make a big move against Hisoka amidst the ongoing Mafia war.

Chapter 405 is titled, “Performance”

This chapter has 19 pages.

The chapter title is prefaced with a Diamond symbol, which is an indicator of Hisoka’s presence and is usually meant to represent risk or excitement.

Hisoka’s Dating Preferences

In Hisoka’s card language, a diamond is usually seen whenever he is working towards a specific goal.

The chapter begins with a casino where Hisoka is the dealer.

The chapter title cover shows Hisoka with playing cards, his usual motif.

After finishing his work, Hisoka roams around the casino and recalls why he was not interested in the Chimera Ants, who were once the greatest threat to humanity, at least to the audience.

He just saw them as mere ants.

Hisoka was also able to sense the occasional rumblings around the Black Whale as being from “group-based abilities born from a ceremony with the help of a Nen Beast”, which could be from 9th Prince Halkenburg’s side since he has been the most active with his Guardian Spirit Beast. 

Hisoka was always highly sensitive in any environment he is in, such as being able to find Kalluto tracking him in Greed Island and he was able to “read power levels” in the 13th Chairman Election Arc although much like his Hatsu personality test, these are from subjective observations

But behind these observations was an analytical mind capable of discerning a whole situation from little details.

Hisoka notes that because the Nen rumblings he sensed came from a group activity, this was a turn-off.

This somewhat goes back to Hisoka’s remark to Illumi that he is shy around strangers, which has a dozen layers considering Hisoka’s somewhat more intimate relationship with Illumi.

We finally address something that has been burning in our minds since the Chimera Ant Arc ended: why was Hisoka not in the arc?

The Chimera Ant Arc was the biggest event in the Hunter x Hunter at that point, with Meruem being capable of not only beating Hunter Association Chairman Isaac Netero, the world’s greatest martial artist, but also survive the Poor Man’s Rose for a time and even have the capacity to destroy the world.

This really ties Hisoka’s characterization back to Netero because as much as we may not like to admit it, Hisoka and Netero share similar mentalities when it comes to fighting.

The very reason Netero chose to fight Meruem in spite of the Ant King’s wisdom and moment of human empathy was because he saw Meruem as himself, a human, and because of that humanity, he will be capable of great evil.

Netero’s self-awareness was on full display as he indulged in this fight, expressing gratitude to the universe that he had finally found an opponent who would receive his full performance, even at the cost of death.

However, at the same time, Netero did not desire to challenge himself in the Dark Continent because victory there meant survival as the creatures and environment were impossible for even the height of humanity himself, Netero.

Hisoka and Netero wanted to fight PERSONS, not creatures who lacked a will and passion to match.

Although Netero treated battles like religious and existential affairs, Hisoka’s sexual mentality to fighting comes from a similar view of the Other, of an opponent able to express their will.

An opponent just like themselves, sharing something called “humanity”.

Speaking of Hisoka’s sexuality, we finally have an in-depth discussion on Hisoka’s approach to battle.

Hisoka describes battle in sexual terms and views himself as a “normal” person and does not engage in interspecies combat or what he calls “animal play” or team fights (“party play”).

For Hisoka, combat is “loving” and destructive one-on-one combat with another human is the highest form of love.

Although Hisoka is disappointed that he cannot enjoy interspecies or team fights as a normal. However, he admits that even solo ‘masturbation’ is absolutely fine. 

If we take it in the more conventional sexual context, it means that Hisoka is a “heteronormative” or even “heterosexual” in that sense and prefers to engage with partners one-on-one instead of in a polyamory.

Actually, he could even consider himself “normal” in the sense that he does not engage in “bestiality”.

This is why Hisoka usually dispatches groups of opponents quickly and shows no enjoyment in them.

To Hisoka, battle is intimate and he cannot have strangers or a gathering of people he can engage at the same time as he would not be able to enjoy himself.

This is an interesting thought because Hisoka did participate in Razor’s dodgeball game, which is a form of “party play” if we go by Hisoka’s words since Hisoka did remark it was fun.

This does imply that Hisoka momentarily broke his pattern and enjoyed a form of “party play” due to the thrill it gave him.

The term “masturbation” or self-pleasure would have a different connotation for Hisoka.

Examples of this would be his fight with Gon in the Heaven’s Arena, where he does not kill his opponent and in fact allows the opponent to deal damage to him.

Trailing Hisoka…is another Hisoka?

It is so unusual to see such an alarmed expression from Hisoka’s face but here we are.

As it turns, Hisoka is in a VIP-exclusive casino in Tier 1.

If you recall in Chapter 393: “Plea”, Hinrigh, the Xi-Yu underboss, requested that Hisoka stay in a VVIP room in Tier 1 until the conflict with the Heil-Ly and Cha-R is resolved.

This furthers Bonolenov’s concern that Hisoka might be someone else in disguise just like himself.

This is a concerning development in the “Fake Hisoka” theory going around ever since the start of the actual Succession Contest when the Black Whale departed in Chapter 359 “Departure” because to make himself hard to find, Hisoka would have to disguise himself.

However, the chapter seems to indicate that the person Bonolenov is following IS the real Hisoka because there is no one else who sexualizes battles than Hisoka himself.

There’s a chance the monologue is just to throw us off but the timing is also narratively appropriate for Hisoka to finally reveal his real self here.

This monologue breaks the theory, until Togashi can somehow revive it again in some form.

Bonolenov was the Fake Hisoka

We first learn of Bonolenov’s disguise ability “Battle Cantabile: Metamorphosen” in Chapter 377: “Scheme” as he brings up this ability to Chrollo when he and Shizuku wanted to join him on the Hisoka hunt and this set off the (correct) idea that Bonolenov was the fake Hisoka seen in the recent chapters.

Since he claims to have no mind for strategy, Bonolenov would use this ability according to Chrollo’s input.

As it turns out, Bonolenov was instructed by Chrollo to disguise himself as Hisoka to get close to areas where the Kakin Mafia might be.

By having Bonolenov move around, they could provoke the Mafia to bringing Bonolenov to a luxury room to maintain the shaky Mafia balance in the belief that since Hisoka tends to act alone, isolating him will make things easier to control.

If Bonolenov acts as Hisoka in front of the Mafia, who have more of an advantage in finding him, that will allow the Troupe to find Hisoka faster and help the Mafia save face.

Chrollo also predicted that Hisoka might have even made contact with one of the Princes since Tier 1 would be the perfect hiding spot.

Bonolenov speculates that Chrollo did not share this theory with the rest of the Troupe to deal with Hisoka alone and because he knows that they care so much about Chrollo and each other that they would rather let themselves take the burden than Chrollo, as established in the Yorknew City Arc climax and even in the flashback of their founding. 

Chrollo instructs Bonolenov to turn into someone else if Hisoka is close by.

So Bonolenov brings back a blast from the past, Owl of the Shadow Beasts.

We notice that Bonolenov transforms through the act of dance, which is a condition of every application of his Battle Cantabile, which is connected to Bonolenov’s heritage as a Gyudondond, a tribe of humans with holes on their bodies meant to emit various sounds and notes when performing certain dance moves to play battle songs for the tribe’s rituals.

This arc has been giving Bonolenov some love just like the Chimera Ant Arc spotlighted the two Hatsu mentioned earlier, which is great.

Battle Cantabile: Metamorphosen is the third known section of Battle Cantabile and it allows Bonolenov to turn into anyone he has met personally and the duration of the transformation depends on how long Bonolenov has met the individual.

Additionally, Bonolenov believes that the smaller the target of his transformation compared to himself, the shorter the amount of time he can maintain their form

Bonolenov worries about having killed Lynch, one of the Xi-Yu henchmen, as it might cause the Mafia to go after Hisoka to kill him.

This confirms that the first time we saw Hisoka on the Black Whale in Chapter 392: “Information”, it was Bonolenov in disguise.

When Lynch punched “Hisoka”, it seemed that the reflex was a superspeed move similar to when Chrollo knocked out Neon.

Bonolenov explains why he chose to kill Lunch and spare Zakuro: first, he deduced that only Lunch and the person she hits can hear the inner voice

Lynch’s ability is “Body and Soul”, where if she asks a question, the punch she delivers will cause the target to give an honest answer.

Bonolenov wanted to avoid answering Lynch’s question of “Who are you?”, so before she makes contact with him, Bonolenov knocked her out, so it all adds up.

After knocking both Xi-Yu members out and throwing them in the dump, Bonolenov disguises himself as Zakuro and sees Lynch wake up, who angrily suspected that the Hisoka who knocked her out was a fake and that Heil-Ly or the Troupe deceived them.

Still pretending to be Zakuro, Bonolenov killed Lynch and then transformed into her. 

As Lynch, he approaches the waking Zakuro and told him that the Hisoka who punched her was the real one, which happens to be the scene from Chapter 393, where “Lynch” tells Zakuro to inform Hinrigh that Hisoka is located in a theater, implying that the one that met Hinrigh in the same chapter is also Bonolenov.

The question is: how did Hisoka get permission to head into Tier 1?

The likely answer is that Hisoka actually followed Bonolenov’s lead and is likely exposing him, which means he might be the next Phantom Troupe member to die.

Chrollo’s True Feelings

Bonolenov realizes that the Troupe members have been aware of the immense emotional wound Chrollo has been carrying from Shalnark and Kortopi’s deaths and that the “treasure” Chrollo is after is a Nen user, a “page for Chrollo’s book” that is guaranteed to kill Hisoka for good.

When he appeared on the Black Whale in Chapter 366: “To Each His Own”, Chrollo had a dark look of anguish and bloodlust.

With the context of the Phantom Troupe flashback, we can also see Chrollo feel a sense of responsibility over what happened, as he used their powers to defeat Hisoka in Heaven’s Arena and that made them ideal targets to be killed by Hisoka.

Being powerless over Sarasa’s death in the past and not wanting any of his friends in the Troupe to know the gruesome truth behind it, Chrollo placed himself as the head of the Spider to see all that darkness while everyone else survived as the collective entity called the Spider.

Although the Troupe understood that Chrollo wants to eliminate Hisoka by himself to atone for losing more friends, Chrollo seems to have left the Number 9 spot empty.

Of course another spot that is empty is the Number 12 spot once occupied by Kortopi but Bonolenov does not mention it, which means that it could be referring to Pakunoda.

This line is interesting because Pakunoda was also debated to either be Number 6 or Number 9.

Perhaps Number 9 is not Shalnark’s seat but Pakunoda’s since she was the one who died earlier and someone who sacrificed herself so that Chrollo will not die and thus hurt the entire Spider.

Pakunoda’s loss might have weighed heavily on Chrollo that he left that seat vacant.

The choice to open or refuse a replacement seems to be a complex aspect to Chrollo’s personality.

Nobunaga was open to the possibility of recruiting Gon into the Phantom Troupe to replace his best friend Uvogin.

Eventually, Number 11 was filled up by Illumi but the nature of this relationship is also complicated by the fact that Illumi himself admits that he has a “marriage agreement” to kill Hisoka in Chapter 377

Hmm hold on.

We know of two characters with the ability to disguise themselves within the Phantom Troupe itself: Illumi and Bonolenov.

Not to mention that Illumi equated battle with sexual terminology, albeit in more formalized gender relationships like with marriage.

But Hisoka considers himself a “normal person” in this analogy and is more in-depth with this psychology.

Besides that, unless there is a mind reader like Pakunoda, there is no one around to receive this thought process.

Okay we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Chrollo allows even the killer of any Phantom Troupe member to join the Troupe yet is depressed with the case of Shalnark and Kortopi.

Uvogin’s requiem in Yorknew City, where Chrollo cried for his close friend, provided a closure to the death of Uvogin by the massacre of the Mafia.

The requiem was enacted to fulfill Uvogin’s desire: to go wild, rather than take out bloodlust.

It could even be argued that the requiem was not purely out of sadness but also a celebration of who Uvogin was.

Pakunoda’s death has also not been avenged, so perhaps there is a form of closure in that they had avoided retaliation against Kurapika to ensure Chrollo does not die.

However, Judgment Chain has been exorcised by Abengane so will Chrollo pursue Kurapika as revenge for Paku’s death?

Why, then, is he keeping Pakunoda’s seat empty, if that is the intent to begin with?

Anyway, Bonolenov hopes that once they kill Hisoka, Chrollo can stop his act, or “performance”, of maintaining composure after the deaths of members.

The Phantom Troupe was founded from the orphans who wanted to have a theater troupe where they played as superheroes, the Power Cleaners (a pun for Power Rangers) but with Sarasa’s death and the cruel circumstances behind it, Chrollo was motivated to “perform” before the world, this time to bring an audience of criminals to Meteor City and find the ones responsible for Sarasa’s death.

Sarasa’s Killer Was Already Taken Care Of.

In another section of the Black Whale, Chrollo is seen walking while we see the face of the man who killed Sarasa on a news report.

This is Lisnorth, the Chairman of the Mama Help Foundation, and he was brutally murdered a decade earlier, with a culprit yet to be found.

The news report mention that Lisnorth was admired by the people.

However, a lot of the people in the area murmur about how much of this is fake news, implying that they know that Lisnorth is actually a monster who tortures and kills children, with one even saying that it is a case where no one wants the culprit to get caught.

If you notice carefully, the background for Lisnorth’s image shows trees, a harrowing reminder of where Sarasa was killed.

This could mean that Chrollo killed Lisnorth in a forest in a similar way to how Sarasa was brutally murdered.

Chrollo might have also recorded the killing and spread it to the dark web, leading to people celebrating the mysterious and violet death of Lisnorth as the video could have also exposed his crimes, including Sarasa’s death.

If he was murdered a decade ago, Chrollo would be 17 or 18 years old, 3 years since the Troupe’s foundation.

After all, Chrollo compared Sarasa’s death to a theater performance, with “a message to attract”, a crime scene with “deliberate framing in mind”, almost like it was a work of art.

We first see Lisnorth’s face at the very end of Chapter 396: “Founding, Part 2”, where he was among a group of human traffickers who had been kidnapping children in Meteor City for some time and are seeing that the time for that is drawing to a close since Meteor City has gotten vigilant and so in their last hunt, they aim to “make the most fun”.

This is unfortunately a tragic reality, that the ones most trusted with the care for vulnerable children, could potentially be able to do the most harm.

We have seen this in many ways and Lisnorth’s existence is a vile, cruel reminder of the darkness humanity hides, or in Chrollo’s case, is forced to hide for the sake of our collective sanity.

Chrollo’s cold walk as the news is played signifies that he was directly responsible and that he had already moved past this point of his cause, to be the villain that hunts down other villains.

It is interesting this news was broadcast at this time, right when 9th Prince Halkenburg died under mysterious circumstances.

We may know who Lisnorth intended that work of art for in the future but if not, it is likely that Lisnorth killed Sarasa for his own sick, sadistic pleasure and for the world to admire him, maybe for someone like 4th Prince Tserriednich, who might be a teenager when Sarasa died about 16 years ago but this is just speculation.

Morena’s Big Move

Meanwhile, Nobunaga begins to doubt if the Heil-Ly are even on the Black Whale at all and that the ones onboard are just fakes or stand-ins.

Cha-R underboss Wang explains that the Kakin Mafia bosses are treated like royals but without titles, so their positions are passed on through inheritance.

Although the Cha-R were there for Morena’s inheritance ceremony, they were not close enough to Morena specifically to understand Heil-Ly’s objectives.

Wang notes that if all Morena wanted was to destroy the other two Mafia families, the killing of random passengers was highly unusual, so Wang thinks that Morena might want to kill everyone on the ship and wipe out the entire nation of Kakin in one fell swoop.

Wang also speculates that the Heil-Ly are incentivized to kill so many people in order to gain Nen abilities from the process.

While Tajao tells Nobunaga that the Cha-R and Xi-Yu families will cooperate with the Troupe, internally Wang hides the truth of his closeness to Morena.

Seeing how strong the Phantom Troupe are, Wang notes that Morena might play her “joker” move ahead of schedule.

In the Heil-Ly lair, Morena speaks to one of her minions, Dogman, who has now reached Level 62, and says that Halkenburg’s funeral procession is the best time to strike because of the large number of people to see the late 9th Prince off.

Morena then asks Dogman to find a certain someone and with Sodom, Dogman begins his mission.

Voconte asks Morena about the other members, to which Morena reveals that she has told them to level up the processing to get their revenge on Xi-Yu underboos Hinrigh, who has been killing her own members.

Having reached Level 51, Quorolle, Tevelares, and Daemon are now ready to act.

Meanwhile, as Nobunaga, Phinks, and Feitan follow Tajao through the Cha-R’s route, they eventually reach another door and are shocked by what they see after opening it.

What could it be?

Editor’s Note: Hisoka and the Troupe are on the move!! Next issue, what scene are Nobunaga and the others looking at?! The intense succession contest continues!!

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